CBI unearths an ISD call racket in BSNL, arrests five accused
merisarkar news service
New Delhi, June 28, 2010
CBI busts ISD calls racket at BSNL
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Sub Divisional Engineer of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) of Roorkee and four private persons of Faridabad (Haryana) & Saharanpur (U.P.). India’s premier investigating agency claimed that it also succeeded in arresting the kingpin of the racket which caused the loss of several crores of rupees to BSNL.
CBI said in a statement that during the investigation, it was revealed that the accused persons made calls to 03 African nations i.e. Congo, Sierralone and Somalia on some premium rate numbers without any ISD facility by tempering the computers of said exchange.
Premium rate telephone numbers are international telephone numbers for telephone calls during which certain services are provided, and for which prices higher than normal are charged from callers.
Adult chat line are example of Premium rate telephone numbers. Unlike a normal call, part of the call charge is paid to the service provider through telephone company at the receiver end. Thus, subscriber of these international numbers were getting huge payment by telephone operators without paying any money at caller end. In tern BSNL was suffering huge loss to the tune of crores of rupees.
Investigation has further revealed that International Call Racket, wherein International Premium Rate numbers of Somalia, Cango and Sierralone were taken by some persons in Italy and Saudi Arabia and these numbers were passed on by them to king pin of this racket (an NRI in Saudi Arabia) for making huge calls from India through his Indian contacts and the king-pin was also paid huge money through hawala transactions for carrying out such activities in India.
Searches were conducted at the premises of accused persons which led to recovery of incriminating documents and huge details of money transactions. Till now, transactions of nearly Rs. 1.5 crore rupees by hawala has been established.
CBI said that further investigation in the case is going on.
